


Sanctuary Unlocked

by lynndyre



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3776380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life and death and what follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sanctuary Unlocked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burning_Nightingale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/gifts).



Narvi died happy. In his lifetime, the halls of Khazad-dum had spread ever deeper beneath the mountains, and the dwarves had multiplied to fill them; with crafted light and sculpted stone and beauty of all kinds wrought by hands, dwarven and elven alike. The smiths and craftsmen of the holly city came and went freely in the open trading halls, and languages mingled like strange songs.

Narvi's apprentices were Masters now in their own rights, and had apprentices of their own. Narvi had no children of his body, but many of his heart, and his works in stone would endure until the mountains themselves fell.

Narvi's beard was silver and his body was old. He was tired, and he was satisfied. He had done good work. He went to sleep under a ceiling carved by his own hand and did not wake. 

His tomb bore reliefs on each of its sides, carved by those he taught. And at the foot, shining in even the lowest light, were inlaid all the letters of his name and greatest works, written out rune by rune in Celebrimbor's hand.

 

Celebrimbor did not die so well as Narvi. Yet, had Eru asked, he would never have claimed to have lived so well as Narvi had. Perhaps it was fitting.

How many years had he been willfully blind? Hating those who sent counsel, for demanding he turn away someone so fascinating, who had done nothing wrong? They were to be ignored. They were jealous. Anything to put the blame away from himself, and away from his ...... Teacher. Partner. Betrayer.

Realisation had seeped, too slowly, cold and awful into his heart, in the years when no sweet golden voice was there to stoke his pride and anger. Fear, to which he could never admit. His craftsmanship had been altered. Influenced. Bettered, he had told himself. And yet he worked alone to forge his greatest Three, and he did not like to think what else of himself Annatar might have seen, or altered.

Then the final, horrific clarity of revelation. Not a friend. Not even an enemy, but _the_ enemy, the greatest servant of darkness remaining in Middle Earth, and Celebrimbor had helped him to craft even greater power. The tide of war had been almost a relief, as if the storm in his soul were finally allowed to burst, to pour out his anger and betrayal into outright battle.

Battle that Eregion had lost.

Laughter bubbled now in Celebrimbor's soul; laughing anger, and self-hatred. This was what he had made of himself, of his place in the world, he who had struck out in solitude to defy his father's evil, and instead had mirrored his grandfather's.

Three great works. One to the fire, one to the water, one to the air – all to be tainted. 

Elven hubris spilling elven blood.

His own blood hung thick in his nostrils; dried, cracked, and flowed again wet over his skin when he stirred against the cold stone. He was no Feanor, his spirit did not burn bright enough to defy forever. One by one he had given up his creations. First the Nine, for mortal Men, then the Dwarven Seven.

Durin his friend was gone, since five yeni and more. Durin his ally, third of that name, wore the strongest of the Dwarven rings, behind doors Celebrimbor himself marked and hid, behind Narvi's stone. 

Narvi was a fragment of memory, outside Celebrimbor's reach. Like the smell of the holly trees, or the music of the Sirannon, tumbling over the Stair Falls – instead Celebrimbor heard the rasping evil of the Black Speech, and the bubbling of fluid in his own lungs, constricting each breath.

His work in Arda was done – was undone.

His city was fallen.

His spirit was defeated. He prayed his allies were stronger than he was.

Celebrimbor of Eregion closed his eyes against the mocking gaze of his beautiful, lying, false friend, and willed his spirit to depart.

His body was never recovered, and he had no tomb. His works were scattered, the halls of the craftsmen sacked, and his great rings usurped. But in the walls and vaults of Moria, of Khazad-dum, his words endured.

 

Narvi entered the Halls of his Fathers young again in spirit, driven and curious to see what the workmanship will be like. Mahal, Aule, has given them this space to work, to build, to create, until the ending of the world.

In the greatest halls, lit with golden light, the Weaver's tapestries unfurl along the walls in great swathes of colour, recording the life of the world. There is no count of years, without season or sun, but in his first days Narvi watched those he had known in life, and for the most part saw them happy. As those he had known grew fewer in the cloth, and joined him in truth, he watched the weavings less often.

He did not see the gift-giver appear, tempting at his friend's gates, and his hands and mind were buried in lattice-sculpture as tensions rose across Middle-Earth. It was only when the throne room of Khazad-dum appeared and caught his eye that he stopped to see, to watch the figure of Durin III weave into being, hand extended in welcome, wearing a heavy ring. Durin's hand was extended to Galadriel, who with her husband had been co-rulers with Celebrimbor, and Narvi wondered to see her flee with her daughter. 

The Weaver wove, and Narvi's fists clenched as all Eriador was besieged, the walls of Eregion were fallen, and the elves, craftsmen he had worked long hours beside, fled and died in nameless tableau.

The orcs raised their hideous banner, and Narvi turned away, and left the hall.

He made then to lose himself, walking corridors he did not know, past forges where smiths he did not know crafted works he cared nothing to see. Fatigue was hard to come by in these halls, but it licked at his legs as he found himself at last reaching a low passage that came to a dead end.  
Narvi laid his hand on the stone, let cool solidity seep into his veins. There was possibility in it, quiescent. Waiting to become. Under his fingertips the potential woke, hummed, called to him. This was his project. This was for him to shape.

He stood long in that corridor, hands to the stone, feeling out each facet, each vein. He walked the nearby rooms, but when he drafted a map of them, he found that nothing crossed behind that little wall. Yet the stone told him something was there.

Staring at the blueprint, tracing each path, Narvi's fingers brushed over that empty space, that unknown. And he knew what the stone needed. 

Planning was slow, for he did not know the depth of the stone, nor the size of the final archway. Yet as he went, he found the stone leading him upwards, not to the height of a great door, or to great enough width to transport cargo, but larger than a simple dwarven domestic doorway. Taller. 

Narvi had carved out this height before. He ran his thumb along the rock, considering, and chalked the outline in his memory. The stonework purred.

Well then.

 

In the Halls of Mandos, Celebrimbor wandered, the wounds of his soul still bleeding away wisps of his feä with every un-beat of his spirit's heart. He stood for long hours before the doors that held Feänor, but did not enter. 

There were other dead there of Eregion, his beautiful city among the holly trees. All that they wrought in hope, all they made, all they were, all come to ruin. When they speak, his throat closes, and he cannot answer.

He could not loose his tongue even before Nienna, when she walked among them. Her tears fell on his broken hands, and he looked up into her face. And though words did not come, yet he breathed easier, and his fingers moved freely again.

 

Narvi shared his designs with none of his fellow masons, nor any among his kin. This corridor, this project, was his alone, and he told no one- until the Weeper, the Master Sorrower came. In the realm of Aule's dead, her tears flowed silent on her cheeks to wet her downy beard, and Narvi knelt to her and offered up his plans. The lamentation of the world fell drop by drop to wet his drawings, and she smiled when she met his eyes. In her wake, Narvi could smell holly and metal and moonlight. 

Her approval carried his work forward, the shape of a chalked door now a full archway, passing clean through the stone to the other side- yet allowing no egress. For beyond the doorway was not stone, nor earth, nor metal; no substance Narvi had worked or known. It created an impenetrable barrier.

Narvi had opened the doorway as far as he could. He spoke soft, fuzzy-edged words to that impenetrable space as he carved out the inset and catch, building it to close flush with the stone, as only a dwarven door could. Before he triggered the panel to slide to, Narvi's hand found his chalk once more, to mark a star a handspan above his head.

 

Time passed, unmarked but not unfelt.

 

There was a garden. There were many, in great courtyards among Mandos' halls, spaces evocative of trees and of growing things. They did not draw Celebrimbor in. But this one... he reached out, pressed his hand among the holly leaves, felt them prick and threaten and scratch. He gripped the thin branch, and the leaves traced his wrist like small jewel-green claws.

There was a space behind the trees, and Celebrimbor stepped into it, shaded now beside the wall. 

He pressed his palm to the stone, cool where it has been hidden from the light, and the star flared outward under his hand. The star he could never escape, could never choose not to be.

His fingernails dug, futile, into the sigil, and he laid his forehead against the rock. He remembered the door he helped make, under the moonlight; the burst of warm air that would greet him, smelling of spices and dwarves. Emotion welled in his throat, dissolved the knot that had stopped his tongue. The word that escaped was his password; was access to companionship, to allies, trade, gems and metals to play with. A place to come in out of the darkness and be welcome. A word that had meant sanctuary to him, for almost a thousand years.

" _...friend._ "

There is light, but he has not the strength to open his eyes, nor move himself to care, until the stone beneath his face and hands gives way, and he stumbles, dizzy, to his knees. A panel slides shut behind him, blocking out the garden, and the air is warmer. He lets himself breathe. 

Footsteps in the passage let him know he is not alone. 

"Silverfist. You don't need to wait at the doorstep."

A stone-heavy hand lands in his hair, and he leans into its grip, turns to embrace its owner. They separate by inches, Celebrimbor's hand trailing through Narvi's russet beard.

"No beads?"

Narvi sighs, and nudges until Celebrimbor is forced to stand. He finds his legs are willing to hold him. "I expect you'll make some. Whether I ask it or no." But Narvi's moustache curls upwards with his smile.

Celebrimbor can see the beginning of a design in his mind, for the first time since his death. "Do you know? I think I will."


End file.
